New

There's a man I met tonight (named Roman) who wanted me to let him stay over my house tonight. I said NO and was adamant and safe. But I think I texted Narc. FUCK! (I'll tell you guys what I said if I'm ever coherent and capable, ever again!) I also saw one of the FourthFloorGirls and Hammer called me drunk. I'll update you tomorrow. I miss him desperately. I'm drunk myself. (As if you couldn't tell!) This sucks...

-H-

Working Girl!

Would you believe it! After three months of wasting my time, I am officially back to work! I just finished teaching my first class. (I let them out early. After all, it is the first day.) This morning I woke up at 6:45 am and I left myself SO much time to get ready. I showered, dried my hair, did my makeup, checked the blogs, checked my email, and wasted a lot of time. By the time I went to get dressed, I was crazy frustrated because I couldn't find anything to wear. I tried on a million things and threw them all on the floor. (I'm sure every girl knows what I'm talking about!) My entire summer wardrobe consists of ratty jeans and t-shirts or inappropriately low-cut tops. I tried on a million things, and as the clock ticked on, would you believe it? I found myself running late. Finally I decided to fuck the whole project. I put on boots and a long sleeved shirt and resigned myself to sweating my ass off today for the sake of fashion and appropriate attire.

I'm sitting in my office right now, having just finished editing a paper as a favor to Bezoukhoff. One more class to teach here, and then I'm off to school across town to take my own class. The thing that sucks is that I have to come back to the West Side later tonight to teach an evening class. Oh well. I'll survive.

I'm actually feeling really good about being back.

But there it is... Yes, it's still there... There's a gnawing crushed feeling that I haven't heard back yet from Narc. The wiser part of me knows that I need to let that whole thing die. I feel like it's a disease that has been eating away at me spiritually and hindering my productivity and happiness. I'm energized today. I'm determined to eat right, not drink so much and focus on school.

God, I hope this all sticks!

He's leaving one week from today. I think I'm going to feel an enormous sense of relief. I hope... (Once I'm over the sadness).

-h

Waiting

I feel like today is a whole lot of waiting.

First of all, I'm waiting for tomorrow. I spent the first half of the day running off photocopies and piecing together new syllabi, articles and paper assignments for the first day of classes tomorrow. I stood there waiting at the photocopy machine for nearly two hours, stapling and slicing my fingers on endless reams of white paper.

Second of all, I'm waiting to see Hammer again. She did the drive up from D.C. this afternoon and I'm glad she's back in the city. She called me a few times from the road. I just pictured a little car on a road-map winding its way towards New York City.

Third of all, I'm waiting to hear back from Narc. I know it's rather pathetic, but I sent him an e-mail last night telling him how much he hurt me and that I don't understand how he could do and say what he did. Is he going to write back and apologize? Is he going to call me drunk? Or is he simply going to take off for Europe next Tuesday without another word for me? I know I shouldn't care, and I know I shouldn't want him to call me, but I'm pretty conflicted on that one. A good part of me does...

I went to get a pedicure (and waxing) today, and I spent a good chunk of time waiting for the nailpolish to dry. VJ called me while I was waiting. She seems to be doing okay in Miami, although her new car got flooded by Hurricane Katrina.

It's 5:30 now and I'm waiting to hear from B about whether or not we're on for dinner.

Oh, and I'm waiting for BarMan to go on duty at 7:00. I figured I'd run over there for an hour, as I don't expect B until 8:30 or so.

I'm nervous about tomorrow. I don't know why. Letting go of the summer feels, in a way, like letting go of a piece of my life. Especially because of the way this summer began and what I shared with Narc... I still haven't gotten over that loss, and I wonder if I ever will. I hate what he said to me on Thursday about that. Why am I so damn sensitive?

Anyway, Dr. Phil is on, and of all of my addictions, I consider it one of the least harmful, so I'm off to watch...

Later!

-H-

Disclaimer

PS:

I'm afraid that in my "drunk" post last night, I made the whole Narc thing seem worse than it is. Maybe by leaving out details and leaving it to your imagination, it seems more worrisome than it should be. It wasn't THAT bad. I'm totally fine, just a little stunned, that's all. I'm just blowing off steam here. I don't want you all to be picturing me black and blue and half hospitalized. It's not like that. Just a few little tiny bruises. It's not the physical stuff that was so bad--just the whole dynamic.

Anyway, so that's my disclaimer. No worrying about me on account of this. You all know I'm a dramatic girl! Sometimes I present things a little too dramatically...

-H-

New Day

Okay, today is a new day and I am going to officially "move on" in my life. (What do you think, guys? Can I do it?) I've got a lot of school work to do, Hammer is coming back to the city and my mom and sisters will be here later this afternoon to go see a documentary about Emmett Till at the Film Forum. I managed to stay in last night after 2:00 and actually get a decent night's sleep (which for me is anything over six hours). As such, I don't want to be blogging about Narc and drugs and booze later tonight and to be brought back to that mindset.

So, here's the stuff I wanted to catch this blog up on:

My Fight with Narc on Monday Night (8/22):

On Sunday night I slept at Narc's house and hung out there the next day until around 4:00. When I was leaving, I mentioned that I planned to go out later that night and he said to call him-- that "maybe he'd join me." As I already mentioned in my End of Summer post, he called me and said he had been having dinner with a friend nearby and would meet me at Cheers in 20 minutes. (That was around 10:30 pm).

Well, to keep a long story short, he met me at Cheers. BarMan was on duty and didn't give me a hard time at all about bringing Narc around. NDN stopped by for a few minutes and chatted it up with us about plans for his upcoming date. Narc was moody and seemed depressed. I asked him why.

"It's just ModelChick," he said. "Whenever I'm with her, she just sucks the energy right out of me." (ModelChick is an ex-girlfriend of his).

"So why did you see her?" I asked.

"She had tickets to this rehearsal, part of the Mostly Mozart Festival for tomorrow morning, and she thought I'd like to go, so I went to see her mostly for that."

"Oh."

"So, I thought I'd sleep at your place tonight."

"My place? That's fine. But Narc, I'm not going to be out all that late tonight. I have a lot of shit to do tomorrow."

"I don't want to be out late either. This thing is in the morning. And I'm sick of sleeping through things. Lately, it seems like I sleep through everything. Remember, I even slept through the opera when we were supposed to go!"

Uh oh... Narc just made a BIG mistake. Don't tap into stored up hurt and anger with me! It's playing with fire. I can pretty much go into denial and "scrap" everything, but I do that by not dealing with those things. Then, if someone brings it up later, even if it's months later (as in this case), it's like opening a door and finding a fresh wound. No healing at all. When he brought up the opera, I started to see red.

I smiled at him bitterly.

"Oh, that's right! The opera... Weren't you supposed to make that up to me? Didn't you apologize for 'breaking my heart' and promise to take me to that dance show?"

"What?"

"Yeah, back in May... We were at Yaffa's."

(When I'm not drunk, I have a mind like a trap. I posted about that converation on May 24th.)

Now we were both kind of edgy and pissed at each other. Narc and I were both drinking doubles in the big pint glasses, and BarMan was joking around with us. I mentioned that I always wanted to call JerBer, but never did.

(JerBer is a guy who's always around the bar on weekends. He's a young kid and a great singer and pretty good friends with BarMan. I once mentioned to him that we should hang out and sing, and he agreed. But I never had the guts to follow up because I don't want him to think that I'm hitting on him, and it is kind of strange to approach someone like that. After that, every time I saw him while drunk, I made a similar comment. Recently, he actually gave me his number, but I still hadn't called, so I told BarMan I was thinking about it.)

Anyway, BarMan laughed and said that I should call JerBer, but that he was afraid I would corrupt him. We all had a good laugh at that, but I could tell that the comment pissed off Narc.

After that (when Cheers closed), Narc and I went to Manchester where we hung out with Sean Duffy and then when Manchester closed, we headed to FuBar. I don't remember much of the night after that. I only know that I woke up the next morning in my own bed and by myself.

Here's what I've since pieced together:

Narc programmed the jukebox at FuBar; I wanted to go home and go to bed, but he refused to leave before his set played. We were both kind of irritated with each other anyway; I threatened to leave; He said he hates when I get like that; I actually left. I left him there! Damn, he must have been upset with me!

The next day, there were two messages from him on my home phone:

Sent at 3:18 am:

Hey, Hyde. Your phone picks up pretty quick there. Um... Well, you know this is the Narcissist. And I'm sitting here at FuBar still. And you know what-- I wanted to say soemthing. And I'm going to say it now. This is all really stupid. I want to hang out with you and I want to talk to you and want to do all these things with you, but you keep getting all histrionic on me and it's sucky and I don't like that. I love it when we get to hang out and talk, but I hate it when you go all funky on me and just run off, and that's sucky. Anyway, my set was supposed to come on 10 minutes ago, but I'm still waiting for it, so... I'm going to be die hard and I'm gonna sit here and wait for my set. So I'm sitting here at FuBar and waiting for my set a few blocks up from you, sipping my Jack and Coke and smoking the occassional cigarette and uh --

(Then the message gets cut off. And I have to ask, what's with his vocab in that message? "sucky???").

Sent at 4:02 am:

Hyde--get the FUCK up!!! Oh shit... Whatever. Anyway, I'm heading back down. I thought I'd crash at your pad tonight and then go to do my Lincoln Center obligatory thing tomorrow with a friend of mine but you are not there, so... Alright. I'll go back home and we'll figure it out. Bye.

And that was that...

BarMan's show on Tuesday night (8/23):

BarMan had sent me a text on Monday afternoon inviting me to hear him play at CBGB's gallery on Tuesday night. Unfortunately, I had no one to go with. I racked my brain to come up with someone, and I finally remembered that girl Pati--the one I met the night before I went to D.C. I decided to give her a call. I called her at around 6:00 and left her a message telling her the show was at 9:00. She called me back an hour or so later and agreed to go.

"I just have to pick some stuff up first," she said. "You know what I mean..."

"No, what?"

"Um, E and some other stuff."

When I hung up the phone with her, I was feeling pleased that I had reached out to a sort-of-stranger, and it had paid off. In a particularly bold moment, I decided to call JerBer as well. That one was a strange conversation. He didn't know who I was at first and I had to remind him that I'm the girl who's always drunk at Cheers saying that I'm going to call him. I think he was a little shocked. He said he's busy until after Labor Day but that he'd call me after that. Then I asked him if he was going to BarMan's show. I told him I'd be there with a friend of mine.

"I don' t know," he said. "I was going to, but I still have some stuff to do tonight."

"You should come!" I insisted. "So if you do, I'll see you there..."

Pati and I had agreed to meet at my place at 8:30 and then head downtown together. I went over to Cheers to wait for her and to chat with IrishBird. When, by 9:00 she wasn't there, I wanted to head down by myself. I called her and told her to meet me at the club.

When I got to the club, JerBer was coming in right behind me. We said hi to each other and BarMan greeted us both. It was strange to see all these people outside of the context of Cheers. ThursdayGirl was there with her brother and a bunch of friends, and PumpedUp was there with SN, the bouncer. I bought myself a few drinks and parked myself at a table waiting for Pati.

When she got there, she told me to come into the bathroom with her. She had brought a tab of E and split it in half. I hadn't planned on anything of the sort because I knew I had my choir audition the next day, but what the fuck. I'm impulsive, so I took it and that was that. We bumped into BarMan coming out of the bathroom and I introduced them to each other. He gave me a sly look, as if he knew what we were up to, coming out of the bathroom together.

At one point, I introduced Pati to PumpedUp and SN. She told me that she had only been at Cheers twice. The first time, she got so drunk that SN wanted her to leave. The second time, he didn't want to let her in because he remembered the first. PumpedUp over-rode him on that occasion. So to smooth things over, I introduced her to SN as my friend. I think they must have been laughing that the two drunk girls had found each other and become friends.

The music on the program was all mellow singer/songwriter stuff. BarMan was really good, and as I started to feel the effects of the E mixed with alcohol, I just had to tell him so. When he came off stage, I grabbed his hands.

"You are so fucking talented!" I said. "I am so fucking impressed!" (I was feeling very affectionate)

He thanked me and laughed.

The Cheers crowd started to empty out a little after BarMan played, so Pati and I decided to head back to my place (which invariably means "medicine" if the trip is made in the middle of a party-night like that). She thought it would prolong the feeling of rolling. Good enough excuse for me!

Back at my place, we instantly bonded as if we were old friends. We talked and talked and talked about anything and everything. I usually don't open up to people quite that fast, but we had really good friend-chemistry. By 1:00 am or so, I was out of stuff and we had done a lot. (She does something weird, I have to add--she likes to empty cigarettes, restuff them and smoke them. I'm not so into that idea. It seems too much like smoking crack.) Anyway, I knew a comedown was about to ensue and didn't want to deal with it.

"Wanna go out for more drinks?" I suggested. "That way, we can drink through the comedown."

She agreed and we headed back to Cheers. PumpedUp had returned there, and it was pretty empty. We gossiped with him and IrishBird about that crazy night spent with Crys (the crystal meth dealer). They must have known we were fucked up on something. I think PumpedUp found it all very amusing. We also saw BulgarianGuy there. He was pretty drunk. So when Cheers was closing and the two of us were clearly heading out, he asked if he could join us. I agreed.

The three of us headed to Manchester where Sean Duffy was on duty again. But as Manchester was closing (around 3:00 am), I sent Narc a text:

Hope you're not staying mad at me from last night...

Right on cue, he called me back. We were already heading to FuBar.

"Hyde! Come down here!" he demanded.

"I can't, I'm with friends."

"Ditch them!"

"I'm not going to ditch my friends!" I insisted. "But I will come if I can bring them, and they agree."

"That's cool."

"What do you have to drink there, though?"

"Red wine okay?"

"Hold on, I'll ask..."

I asked BulgarianGuy and Pati if they wanted to go down to Narc's for some wine and chit-chat and they agreed. So we all piled into a cab. This was so fucking surreal---a collision of worlds! When we got there, Narc was pretty drunk himself and had a small bag of blow out on the table.

From there, things get blurry. BulgarianGuy fell asleep on the couch pretty fast. At one point, he had to go to the bathroom and was literally crashing into walls. I had to take his hand and lead him there. I told him I thought it was time for him to go home, but honestly, he was too fucked up for that. So we gave him a pillow and a blanket and he fell asleep in Narc's enormous sofa chair. (Later I checked the bathroom and he had missed the toilet and pissed on the floor. I cleaned it up, though, before Narc could see it.)

Narc and Pati and I stayed up talking for hours. He was being a real asshole--ignoring me and flirting with her. It was almost as if he was doing it just to make the point that we are not a couple. We talked about all sorts of stupid life isues and metaphysical stuff. The kind of stuff people like to talk about high. Of course, the subject of love and family came up, and Narc gave his same old spiel being all bitter and negative about family and love. I talked about lasting love and he said there was no such thing. I told him how much I still love B, and I think that upset him. I also told him how important it is for me to have kids one day. I don't think he liked that topic either.

Anyway, at 7:00 am I started to freak out because my audition was less than 12 hours away and it would take a really long time to come down off of everything I had done that night. I told them that I wanted to go to sleep.

"I guess I'll get going, then," Pati said, gathering her things.

"No! Stay here and talk to me," Narc protested. "Stay and talk."

"But Hyde wants to go to bed."

"So let Hyde go to bed. You and I can stay up for a while more."

"No," Pati smiled. "You two probably want to do your thing. I don't want to be a third wheel."

I could feel tension radiating from Narc. He so didn't like that this girl thought of us as a couple, and that she had stayed oblivious to his flirting the whole night. I mean, honestly, though? What did he fucking expect? It reminded me of how he flirted with Anxious in front of me the whole evening on the day before Valentine's Day. Anyway, I shot her a look, and she insisted on leaving.

"What's going on here?" Narc asked, "Some kind of secret girl code?"

After she had gone, Narc and I crashed to sleep. I didn't wake up until 2:30 the next afternoon and I kissed him goodbye.

Back at my place, I got back into bed and tried to nurse myself into shape for the audition. I was burning up with a fever and couldn't eat a bite. I took four tylenol and stayed in bed until the very last moment. Then I just put on my best game face and pretended that everything was fine and that I was completley healthy and robust. It was enough to get me through the audition, because as you know, I got in!

The Rest of the Week:

After my audition on Wednesday night, B and I went for dinner and to see 2046 at the movies on the West Side. He stayed over my place that night and I tried to sleep off all of the debauchery.

Thursday night was the major Narc trauma. I was exhausted on Thursday. Exhausted beyond belief, as I still hadn't fully recovered from Tuesday night's activities. I took care of a lot of business, though, going over to my teaching office, picking up my class lists, etc. I also began a new project--printing out my entire blog! (And it's DAMN long!) I want to keep it all in three ring binders as well, should anything ever happen to blogger. Anyway, I probably should have gone to bed early that night, but I didn't. Something led me out and back to Cheers.

I don't really want to talk about that night here. One strange thing though--I bumped into JFig again! (You can read about her here.) Then, at around 2:00 am I went down to see Narc. We hung out at the Tribeca Tavern and met a 21 year old Mexican kid from Arizona who's currently on 2-weeks leave from Iraq. Back at Narc's place, chaos ensued. It was a lot of sex, a lot of violence and a lot of tears. He called me some pretty awful names (whore seemed to be one of his favorites) but alternated that with declarations of love and tenderness. He wouldn't let me sleep until 7:00 am, and so I only got 2 hours of sleep that night. (I had to meet my sister early the next day). I'm surprised I haven't gotten sick yet.

The next morning, I called him and left him a message telling him that I left my shirt at his place, and that his behavior the night before was "unacceptable"-- that he had crossed the line. He returned my call with a casual-sounding message at around 6:00 pm on Friday:

Hyde, it's Narc. It's Friday. It's about 6:00. Um yes, I have your top here. Call me back. We have a lot to talk about. I'll talk to you in a bit. Bye.

I didn't plan on responding at all. I didn't plan on conacting him ever again. But last night, as you know, I got a little drunk and ended up texting him. I already put this in my last post, but at about 2:00 am, I wrote him the following message:

Could you just leave my shirt w/ your doorman by Mon? I don't think we have anything to talk about beyond that. Lol always... -H

(WHY oh WHY did I add that "Lol always"??? I'm a sick, sick girl!)

And so that brings me to today. I need to MOVE ON. And like I said, today is a NEW DAY. I'm going to try to stay sane and keep all of this in perspective.

Hope all of you had a better weekend than I did!

-Hyde-

I'm home... (and drunk!)

I'm home and I'm drunk, but it's not even 2:00 am so I may go back out again. But the point is this--I was just in the bathroom at Cheers and I pulled a note out of my bra that I wrote to myself. It read:

Hello, Hyde!!!

How unbelievable is it that you've had nearly 15 drinks and you STILL don't want to call him. That's not a sign of your tolerance for alcohol... That's a sign of how much he hurt you. HE HURT YOU!!!

DON"T FORGET IT!!!

That's when I decided to come home. I need to stay safe. I'm all fucking bruised right now. (My left cheek, my lower right arm, above my breasts and all over my neck). It's fucking embarassing. I want to resolve this with him in a way, but I know that would make it worse, so I'm trying not to. PumpedUp just let me leave w/o paying my tab. He's a sweetheart. But now what to do? Go to bed, or go out and find me some trouble?

I have a sunburn across the small of my back. I'm so fucking pale that the sun will fuck me up every time I leave the tiniest strip exposed. It fucking sucks.

Alright. Enough drunk blogging.

I'll be more diligent this week and catch you guys up on the events. Minus the gore of the Narc violence. I can't face that. Not even drunk.

Oh! Hammer just called me. (By the way, we made up!) She is having some exciting exploits down in D.C. She'll be back here by Monday though. Can't wait.

I've been sucking on a ring-pop all night. The worst thing about sucking on candy--the longer and harder you suck, the smaller it gets! (Doesn't that seem to go against instinct? And nature? Doesn't it?)

Later...

-H-

PS: 10 minutes later, and shit!!! I just sent him a text! I said:

Could you just leave my shirt w/ your doorman by Mon? I don't think we have anything to talk about beyond that. Lol always... -H

What Goes Around Comes Around

There's been major drama. Rather, major trauma. In fact, it's too much for me to even get into. The point is--Narc and I are done for good. If I can't stick to it this time, I really am too stupid for words. I'm debating how much I feel comfortable going into here. I think I still need some more time to sit with all of this, but it was bad... So bad in fact, that I don't care about the shirt that I left there and I don't want to return his calls or even write him a message for closure. He gave me all the closure I need last night.

I hope. I think...

Please, Hyde, be strong on this one!

-h-

Coming Soon...

I have a lot to post about, but haven't gotten around to it yet. The big news of the week--yesterday I auditioned for a new choir and was accepted on the spot. Yay! The conductor seemed really intense and detail-oriented and rehearsals are three hours long, so I hope I know what I'm getting myself into. Anyway, if you want to check it out, it's the Russian Chamber Chorus of New York. (I've always been somewhat of a Russophile!)

I still have to tell you guys about my Monday night fight with Narc. I actually walked out and left him in a bar! Then on Tuesday I hung out with Pati (the girl I met the night before I went to D.C--the night I got to know Crys, the crazy crystal meth dealer). We went to go hear BarMan play at CBGB's and it ended up being a crazy night! We ended up back at Cheers where we picked up BulgarianGuy and then headed to Manchester and FuBar. Narc called me at almost 3:00 am (I guess he didn't stay mad from the night before) and I brought my two companions to his place where we stayed up talking until 7:00 am. (Not wise the night before an audition, but I made it through!)

Anyway, details to follow!

-Hyde-

Oh...And I couldn't resist... Nude pics of Jude Law!

End of Summer

Well, I'm sitting at home without much to do, although I'm not entirely in a blogging mood. The "end of summer" is hanging in the air. Dan has left, and Narc is leaving. B is getting ready for his oral exams and I'm back to work next week. I feel like Narc and I are just riding this out, but it's not the same as it used to be and both of us know it's not going anywhere. It's a strange feeling.

On Friday night I hung out with Dan and his friends Ben, Mike and Scott. As you may know from reading Dan's blog, he just took off for a 9-month trip to Japan and this was his "last hurrah" of sorts with his friends here in town. They all went out for dinner first, and then later met up with me at Cheers. By the time they got there, I had already had five drinks or so, and I was in a great mood.

We had a lot of fun. Dan and I sang a karaoke duet together and I got to hear him sing his infamous "New York, New York." It's pretty noisy in there on karaoke nights, though, and his friends wanted to go somewhere where we could hear each other better. Dan asked if we could go back to my place. (Which, as you know, is right across the street.) I agreed, as long as they gave me a few minutes to run home and straighten up first.

We hung out for hours at my apartment. At one point we went up to the roof where I bumped into one of the FourthFloorGirls. The end of the night gets a little blurry, but I remember trying to watch A Streetcar Named Desire (which, incidentally, is my favorite movie), but when I realized it was nearly 5:00 am I knew I had to get myself to bed. I had to be up the next morning at 8:00 to go to my parents' house, so I said goodnight to the boys and crashed in my bedroom.

Dan and his friend Ben both stayed over on the couch. An added bonus for me--it turns out that Ben is a computer-fixer and he agreed to straighten out the problems that I've been having with my computer ever since my hard drive crashed a month ago. The next morning I woke up on time and Dan took off. I left Ben asleep on the couch with a note about the computer and I was on my way.

When I got to Long Island, my mom put me to work in no time at all. She gave me a grocery list and sent me off to the store. (She was having a family BBQ and needed help setting up).

Here's the list that she gave me:

1 bottle of vodka
25 ears of corn
40 pounds of charcoal
17 bags of ice
5 cases of beer
4 cases of soda
30 bottles of water

What the fuck!?!?! Can you imagine, that scene--a half wasted Hyde loading all of that off the shelves into the cart, off the cart to the register, from the register to the cart and from the cart to the car! Then when I got home, my mom instructed me to bring it all down to the pool area which is around the side of the house and down a flight of stairs. It took me a million trips and my arms and legs are still sore from it today!

The BBQ was fun, but there was a little drama when BigSis and my Aunt got into an argument. I don't feel like writing out the whole story right now, but it was intense. I didn't get back to my place until around midnight. Considering I was on three hours of sleep and had done all of that manual labor, I was ready to crash. Oc called and asked if I wanted to hang out, but I was simply out of energy. Later that night, I got a call from Narc (I think it was around 2:30 am) but like I told Oc, I had to stay home and sleep. He didn't bother me again after that.

On Sunday morning I slept in before meeting B at school. It was strange to be back at school, but in a good way. And it felt good to be quasi-productive. After that, B and I decided to go to the choral evensong service at his church (which is only five blocks from my place). On the way there, we bumped into my Aunt and Uncle right outside the Waldorf Hotel. It was the same Aunt my sister had just quarreled with and she was so syrupy sweet when she saw me, I'm sure because she's hoping I'm going to report back to my mom. It was so strange to see them there because they don't even live in the city!

Anyway, after church, I walked home through a street fair on Lexington and worked out my dinner plans with Dan. Dan and I went to a Mexican place on 62nd and 1st. I really liked the place. We talked and talked and talked over dinner and then he walked me home. It was sad to say goodbye, but I'm sure we'll be in touch via email and blogging.

When I got home, I vegetated, watched some TV and blogged for a little while. Before long, I got a text from Narc:

Mmm...Cheesy Bread.

Narc has been obsessed with Domino's cheesy bread for a few weeks now. (I don't know if it's any good. I haven't tried it). The last time I was there, he had a craving, but Domino's closes at 2:00 am so he couldn't get it delivered. I got his text around midnight, so I wrote back to him that he better move fast--he only had two hours left to order some. As expected, he gave me a ring after that.

"What are you up to tonight?" he asked.

I told him about my dinner with Dan, and my sore arms and legs from my BBQ work the day before.

"What have you been doing?"

"I just had the Exhibitionist and ModelChick over here for the last episode of Six Feet Under. I wanted to watch Entourage too, but I missed it and they're not playing it again until 3:00 am, so I guess I'm just waiting up for it."

"Why don't you TiVo it and go to bed?" I suggested. "It's a little strange to wait up just for that."

"Yeah, well, it's not a big deal. I slept in until 4:00 today anyway."

"Oh."

"So, what's the deal? Do you want to come down here?"

"I don't know, Narc."

Honestly, I was too tired to go, but I can't say no to him unless I'm entirely wiped out or have to teach or something.

"Let me take a shower first, and I'll give you a call in a half hour," I said.

Predictably, after the shower, I went.

It was okay because around 1:00 am I always get a second wind. On my way out, I stopped in the deli across the street. My hair was all wet from my shower, and it was taking forever for the guy to work the cash register. To make matters worse, that guy, Mohammed , shouted to me from behind the pizza station. In case you've forgotten, or you're a more recent reader, Mohammed asked me out on a date a few months back and I blew him off. He called me one morning to "make sure I woke up" for work after I had been out late the night before. It was awkward to see him again.

When I got to Narc's place, we drank some wine, smoked some cigarettes, had some sex and watched some TV (including the end of Kicking and Screaming). It was strange. We were hanging out and laughing as if we were old friends. It was more talk and less sex than usual. I guess time eventually will do that to you. He complained about the negative influence of the "crazy" women in his life--women like the Exhibitionist and ModelChick.

"So? Why do you hang out with them then?"

"Well, the Exhibitionist wouldn't stop calling me. It was taking more energy not to see her. And as for ModelChick, I just bumped into her recently, so..."

We waited up for Entourage even though I was exhausted and afterwards laughed a lot recalling old '80s theme songs.

The next morning he jumped out of bed with no sex. I still think he's trying to keep me at arms length, and maybe that's his way of doing it for himself. It's not usual for us, but he's been getting out of bed quickly as if he doesn't want to "mess up." I can feel it radiating from him. His mom had shipped some books to him and I flipped through them while he did his morning internet surfing. We layed around the apartment for most of the afternoon watching L.A. Confidential and eating vegetarian Thai food. He was pointedly avoiding physical contact with me. And I have to say, I was bored! It's the first time I've ever felt bored with him. I take it as a good sign. At around 4:00 I felt like going home. I had a shitload of laundry to do, I felt like I was getting TV-rot in my brain and there was no point to staying there anymore.

"What are your plans for tonight?" he asked.

"I don't know, but I definitely want to go out. It's gonna be my last Monday at Cheers for the forseeable future, and I like Monday's there. It's chill, and I get a chance to talk to BarMan."

"Why the last Monday?"

"Because school's starting next week and I'm teaching Tuesday mornings. And then in the spring semester, Monday nights are 24 nights with B, so..."

"Well, give me a call later. Maybe I'll join you."

Wait a second. Did I invite him? Can you guys IMAGINE if I ever invited myself along with his friends like that?

"Yeah, okay. I'll call you. But I've got to do my laundry first."

When I got back to my place, I blogged, showered and "decompressed," (a favorite word of Narc's). I bumped into another of the FourthFloorGirls in the laundry room and settled on a song for my choir audition tomorrow. I ordered in dinner, watched some Law & Order and by 10:30 headed out to Cheers. Just as I was out the door, my phone rang. It was Narc.

"Hey, Hyde! I'm only 20 blocks from you. I had dinner with ModelChick tonight on the East Side, so I thought I'd walk up and just meet you at Cheers."

"Oh, okay..."

I was so nervous about bringing him to Cheers--especially since IrishBird had basically told me not to bring him back there. I called NDN and asked if he thought they were going to be rude to us.

"It's BarMan, not IrishBird," he pointed out, "and they won't do anything to embarass you."

We had a good laugh that NDN now knows the work-schedule over at Cheers too. He met me there before Narc arrived and we dished about his date earlier this week. He's preparing for date number two--dinner at his place tomorrow night, and he wanted to work out his strategy in advance. NDN is definitely a planner. He's so funny. He's actually "saving up" so that he'll be impressive in the bedroom, even though he hasn't been able to sleep because of it. (If you recall, that was a remarkable trait of FourteenthFloorBoy's and NDN and I sent him a funny text about it back in June).

Narc and I had a good time at Cheers, but put Narc, Hyde and alcohol in the same room, and there's bound to be a disaster.

I'm off to get dinner now and Seinfeld is on, so I'll leave that for the next post. BarMan invited me to come out and hear him play at CBGB's tonight, so I need to get some stuff done before heading out.

Later!

-Hyde-

Making a Plan

I just got back from lunch with NDN.
Our conversation as we parted at the street corner:

NDN: So what's your plan for the day? What time is BarMan's show tonight?

Hyde: I don't know. I think it's at 9:00. But I don't know what to do with myself before then. Maybe I'll go home and blog.

NDN: No! Go out today! It's a beautiful day. Go to Central Park! Just take off your sweatshirt and you'll be fine. Walk around the park.

Hyde: Central Park?

NDN: Yeah! Go to the Rambles. Go hook up with some sketchy guy in the Rambles.

Hyde: Sounds like a plan.

NDN: You could even post it on Craigs List. 'Come meet me in the Rambles. I'll be wearing...'

Hyde: See you later.

And then NDN went back to work.

Ughh!

Ughh!

Narc and I got into a fight last night. He came up here. We went to Cheers and then to Manchester and then FuBar. Needless to say, I woke up this morning alone. I have a lot to blog about and a lot to catch you guys up on, but I'm meeting NDN for lunch in half an hour and still need to get dressed.

(So as Dan likes to say...)

Hyde...OUT!

Did You Know?

Did you know there's a star named for me?

Star number:

Andromeda RA 1h 46m 34s D 42-degrees, 36'

My star is officially named "Princess Hyde." (Well, not "Hyde," of course, but rather, my real first name is plugged in).

B did that for me for our one year anniversary back in July, 2000.

It was sweet.

I'm Back!

I'm back at my old address. I'm just going to proceed as usual. It's a new semester, a chance to begin again, and I don't want to start things off with drama. I'm just going to go on being myself and hope that my friends are okay with that.

I'm off to go do some laundry. Just back from Narc's and don't have anything clean to change into after my shower. I hope it's not sweltering down in the laundry room!

Later...

-Hyde

Blog Stress

I am so incredibly stressed about what to do about this blog situation. Last night I posted a "goodbye" message, declaring my blogging days over forever. When I woke up this morning, I took that post down. I don't want to lose what has become an important cathartic exercise for me. But what to do? I feel like all of this is growing ever more complicated by the day. It's beginning to suck up too much precious emotional energy. And I've felt very alone since my fight with Hammer began.

I feel stupid having a secret version of my old blog. It seems to defeat the purpose. I want to be comfortable with myself and to be able to express myself freely. At the same time, I don't want to incur the disapproval of my friends. I feel like my blog has driven a huge wedge between me and Hammer and I've been feeling heartsick about it ever since Wednesday.

Hammer thinks that I took down my blog so that I'll be able to "control" things better. Well, you know what? She's right. Honestly, I don't know what's so wrong with that. Don't we all need to feel a measure of control over our own lives and what we tell our friends? Over how we present ourselves to other people? Shouldn't we be able to assess and choose how much we reveal of ourselves and to whom? I can't live as an open book, (as much as it might seem that I do based upon reading my blog). I still keep a lot of things to myself. But I've always posted frankly on this blog, in fact, almost thoughtlessly so. Some of that has come back to haunt me. I've opened myself up in a way that makes me incredibly vulnerable and I can't help feeling anxious and threatened by what I have revealed. I wish that Hammer could understand that I do trust her as much as I have ever been able to trust anyone.

I don't know what to do. I suppose I'll just continue the Annals at the old address and hope that it doesn't interfere in my friendships any more than it already has. I'll hope that Hammer and anyone else who reads it respects how sensitive I am for having opened myself up like that. I've told very few people in my "real" life that I keep a blog. For those that I have, it's been an indication of my trust--a privilege that I have to offer my friends. But blogging is a strange thing. I sit alone in my apartment and spill myself onto a computer screen. I open a window into my mind at a given moment, in words that I'd probably never be comfortable with if I were having a personal exchange with another individual present in the room. If, at later moments, those thoughts and those words come back at me unexpectedly from people who I know "in person," I feel completely off guard and under attack. I frankly can't handle that information coming back to me at unexpected ways in my "real" life off the internet.

Maybe that's not fair of me. But that's the way it is. For my own mental stabiliy, I need to keep my emotional life at bay and I need to seperate the "chaos" of Hyde from the "responsibility of Jekyll." It's how I've managed. I have always been a compartamentalizer. It's how I've coped and gotten through a somewhat chaotic life while managing to keep everything going "on the outside." Of course, I'm working on integrating the boxes in which I've shoved facts and friends. But only I can determine when and how those compartments can be dissolved and the process of integration can begin. No matter how well intentioned my friends are, change has to come from within and according to my own timetable. It seems that Hammer is angry with me that I keep things compartmentalized. She doesn't want to be closed out of my inner "Hyde" circle. But that's unfair. I'm not CAPABLE of doing it any differently. It's a mental shortcoming. I CAN'T mentally manage what she's asking of me. It's why I've felt so threatened by all of this. But I wish that she would understand that I moved the blog due to my shortcomings and not because of our friendship. I wish she would understand that a lot of my demons are exorcised at night in order to keep things held together during the day. I understand that my system is fucked up and needs to be changed into a more healthy balance, but that's an incredibly long term project.

I don't know. This added stress is just not something I want to deal with and that's why I tried to move the blog. But I guess the wiser thing to do would be to stop hiding and to return the blog to its former address. I guess I can be more measured in what I write there and censor myself for the sake of my friends. Maybe I've said too much all along. Part of me is angry that I have to change. But let's face it... I have to change a lot of things.

Hammer, if you're reading this, I want you to know--I have taken what you've said to heart. I've been thinking about it non-stop. I value and respect your opinion so much. I don't know that it's entirely effective for you be personally involved in the process of change in my life, but I have taken some important steps this week. I'm continuing to work with my therapist on all this, and we had a really valuable talk on Wednesday. I'll leave it at that. I hope that our friendship will not be ruined by all of this.

I guess that's it for now.

-Hyde-

This Sucks!

I may have to rework this whole blog thing again after all. I know that this is not a secure sight. After all, I can tell exactly who is reading this blog by looking at my site meter report. (The reports tell me the IP address, the geographic location and the length of time someone is on my page. It also tells me the entry page--how they found my site). It was clear that someone got onto this page by googling "annals of mr. hyde" and I can't seem to figure out how to make that not possible. As such, if I want to keep blogging, I'm going to have to come up with a whole new blog name in order to keep the old stuff out of google's search engine. This is aggravating and I probably won't post again until I decide what to do about it. I will definitely keep you all updated via personal email.

Tonight has been a miserable night for me. I spoke to Hammer on the phone and I really feel confounded about the whole situation. I can't really go into it now, as my mind is kind of numb, but I don't understand what she wants from me. She told me that the way I'm treating myself hurts her. But if I conceal the details of my life from her, she doesn't want to be my friend either because she doesn't want a "phony" friendship. It seems to me like my only option is to fix my life up in order to stay her friend. But obviously it's not that easy, and I resent the ultimatum. When I said that to her, she told me that she's not telling me to change and that I should "be myself." I really am fucking confused and so very sad. She is very angry with me that I moved my blog. I don't think she understands why I did it. I tried my best to explain, but it's pointless. I think she just needs to be mad at me for a while. I wonder if our friendship is over forever. I can't even think that right now, it hurts too much.

After I hung up the phone with her, I started to cry hysterically. I couldn't breathe very well and I started to feel my face tingle and my arms and legs tingle-- like when I used to have panic attacks. Fearing that there was a panic attack coming on, I started to cry even harder and to breathe even heavier. I called B. When he picked up the phone he told me that he "couldn't talk" because he was "with his girlfriend."

"Fine. I'll go then," I sobbed.

He didn't want me to hang up. I guess he felt guilty.

"This is starting to interfere with my relationship," he said.

"What is?"

"Your problems."

I'm telling you guys, it was the last straw. He can be SO fucking self-absorbed. I was crying in pain and he decided to heap on some more guilt. It was not the moment for that!

"Please don't do this right now," I begged. I was hysterical and practically incoherent. "Please let me hang up. I can't take this right now. So I'm a terrible person. I make you miserable and I make Hammer miserable. Fine. Please let me hang up."

"Hyde, what are you going to do if you hang up?" His voice was cold as ice.

"I don't know. I just can't talk to you. Please let me go."

We stayed on the phone like that a few minutes longer. My eyes were stinging and my nose was running. I still couldn't catch my breath, my face burried in the pillows.

"Fine, goodbye." He hung up the phone.

I sobbed until my ribs hurt and my throat was hoarse. At least I didn't throw up. I weakly pulled myself up off the bed and took a shower. It helped a lot, although I still feel drained beyond belief. When I came back over here to check out the status of things on my new page, I learned, from the sitemeter, that the site has been compromised.

Ughh!

Anyway, I'm so miserable that I'm numb. I feel like I lost two friends today. People driven away by my "problems." I don't know what to do. I am who I am. I'd rather be alone in the world than go through this kind of loss though. I think I'm going to go "off the radar" for a while (as Narc once told me in a particularly cold break-up text). I need to cut my ties with all of the people I make miserable. Obviously I do nothing but bring pain to those around me... Hammer, B, and as Hammer pointed out, Narc as well. She thinks he's right... that I'm "unhealthy." That it's my fault he doesn't respect me and doesn't treat me well. Maybe I agree with her. I don't know what I think anymore. My brain is so fried right now. Everything is spinning and I'm exhausted from that cry.

I hate everything right now.

and Beginnings...

Well, I'm back in the blogging business. And I hope that this post is the beginning of a new phase in my life.

I'm really too tired to post much right now. On Tuesday night I hung out with B and had a lovely evening. That is, until the phone kept me up all night. Narc started calling me at 1:00 am and didn't stop until 5:00 am. As B was sleeping in the living room, I didn't want to ignore the phone and let the machine go off. That would have woken B up, and I would have felt terrible. Nor did I want to go clanking around the living room trying to shut the ringer off, as I was sure that would have the same effect. Instead, I lay in bed resting my eyes in the lightest sleep possible, the phone recevier in hand. Each time the phone rang, I tried to answer it within the first half of a ring.

"Narc, I'm asleep. I really can't hang out. I have to go to a funeral tomorrow."

"C'mon, Hyde, get up! I want you here!"

"No, Narc... I can't!"

That's generally how the conversations went.

In the last phone call, he got really cranky.

"But I NEED you, Hyde! I NEED you! I want you here NOW!" He went on like a two-year-old child.

"For the last time, Narc-- I have to go to a funeral tomorrow."

"Well, come over here as soon as you're done."

"I'm not going to be done until the evening," I said. "I won't be back in the city until dinner time!"

"I don't care," he replied. "Come over then."

I think we finally hung up around 5:30 am. At least he didn't curse me and call me a bitch for not coming down there like he used to do.

The next morning I had to wake up at 8:00 am. Fuck! I was SO FUCKING TIRED! On top of that, I couldn't find anything to wear for the funeral. My black pants are all too tight on me and I hardly have any black clothes suited to summer anyway. Arghh! Finally I managed to throw something together that actually came off rather nicely.

On the way to the train station, I sent Narc a text:

Not sure if you remember all our calls last night, but let me know if u still want to hang out tonight. I'll be done w/funeral @ 6:00 but not free til 9:00-ish...

As for the funeral itself, I don't really want to talk about it. It's too depressing, and I'm really low energy today. So, moving on...

My mom drove BigSis, Bro-in-Law and me back into the city where we met LilSis and JBC returning from their trip to the Dominican Republic. We all went out for dinner to celebrate LilSis and JBC's recent engagement. I was walking home from dinner (at 8:53 pm) when Narc texted me:

Out yet?

I called him back and we talked for a few minutes. He never even asked me who died. I told him that I had had a rough day and that it was strange to see so many relatives--aunts, uncles, second and third cousins, etc. coming out of the woodwork.

"You know what I mean?" I asked.

"Actually, no, I don't," he said. He sounded hostile and bitter. It made me remember that Narc has no family.

I told him about my little sister's engagement.

"Your little sister! How old is she?"

"23."

"What?!?! That's way too young!" he exclaimed. "They'll never last! That's my prediction. They'll never last!"

Um, thanks for the vote of confidence, Narc...

Anyway, I agreed to meet him in an hour. When I got home, I rang NDN's bell. We had made a plan to meet a new neighbor on our floor. We went over there, brought cookies and said hi. Then I sat down to check my email. I had a message from Hammer--a very long message from Hammer. Basically, she reiterated over and over how concerned she is about my drinking.

An excerpt from her email:

... it's painful for me to listen any more without taking action to do something to help. How can I help? I know that you want to fight any sense that anyone wants to help you, and I think that that is part of the problem... I am frankly very scared and very worried about your health, and it seems like you are intentionally killing yourself. I can't just passively watch it anymore. I want to take action...

I was kind of stunned upon reading her letter and not really sure what to think. She had expressed a similar sentiment in the comments section on my most recent post, "Opposite Day." Honestly, I had been a little pissed off when I read those comments. As a close friend, I felt like those were sentiments best expressed to me in person and not for public view on my blog. A blog is a very personal thing and I feel like it was a privilege for her to be reading my innermost thoughts--not an opportunity to lecture me. I felt publicly attacked.

I don't know. Maybe I am being a little sensitive about it, but her email felt like an even greater attack. I tried to take a deep breath and remember what a good friend she is before responding. I also ran my response by NDN before sending it off.

Here's what I wrote:

Hammer,

Part of me felt immediately defensive when I read this email, but ultimately, I am grateful to have a friend who loves me and worries about me. Part of me doesn't want to tell you things about my life anymore, but part of me is grateful that I've always been able to be so frank with you. I don't want to deal with this via email. I don't even know what I want to say or how to respond. So, I guess I'd rather talk to you about this in person. I'm not going anywhere between now and when you're back in NY...

Please keep in mind that your most recent impressions of me are via my blog. I'm sure that it does not fully represent my life. I didn't drink the weekend I spent with you and that was followed by a week in California without drinking.

I'm not trying to destroy myself, but at the same time, certain solutions may be more suited to me than others. There's a lot about my family dynamic and my issues with alcoholism that you don't understand. I'm willing to talk to you about this.

Hammer, you know I value your opinion and how much your friendship means to me. But in the end, this is something that has to come from within me. I miss you a lot and can't wait for you to get back to NY. Hope you are well and things with the Wizard are all cool.

Love you!

Hyde

I have to say--all of this caused me tremendous anxiety and started me thinking about my blog in general. When Hammer was here in NY, I saw her in school, we went out for coffee, we bullshitted and watched TV, we went to the movies and to museums and text messaged each other all day long. Yes, she also heard news of my antics with Narc and my heavy drinking, but that was all within the context of Hyde-the multifaceted girl. I began to realize that my blog presents somewhat of a flat picture of me. It's all of the "drama" of my life, and none of the mundane. It's two-inches of who I am, and yet, here she was drawing conclusions and fleshing out a whole picture based on the small piece of myself that I post. She has been away all summer and we've hardly spoken for some weeks. Instead, she's only heard news of me from my blog.

Then I began to think about Liu. When Liu moved out of NY (first to Colorado and then to Texas), we used to email each other every single week. We kept that up for about four years. Last year, our letters began to grow few and far between. When I started posting this blog, I gave Liu the address. After that, forget it... I hardly ever heard from her! After all, she could just read about my life online. She felt like she was all up to date on my activities, so why bother to call or write? It was as if she had been in touch with me, even though I wasn't benefiting from her friendship or support. I didn't like how Hyde-the-blogger was becoming a substitute in our friendship for Hyde-the-person.

Finally, I began to think about the recent situation with Dan. Dan has decided that he's in love with me based on eight months of reading this blog and a handful of personal meetings this summer. Having spent some time with Dan in recent weeks, it's clear that he has a sort of "savior-complex" in relationships. He sees Hyde-the-blogger as some wounded girl that needs to be loved and appreciated. Why? Because he's been consistently reading about how I'm unfairly "abused" by Narc and at odds with the world. Poor Hyde turns to drinking because nobody makes her realize what a great girl she is. Poor Hyde can only benefit from someone announcing his love for her out of the blue!

Is that how I come across here? If so, it's entirely inaccurate! I'm not a victim. I'm with Narc because I have a savior-complex. I'm a super strong and kick-ass girl. I don't want to be saved. I know (and I have known all along) that I've never really tried to quit drinking. Sure, I've made the resolve time after time. But the resolve part is easy. I've never even attempted to follow through. I drink because I WANT to drink. And I want to drink because it fills my life with noise and drama and chaos. I want a life full of noise and drama and chaos because I'm desperately afraid of being lonely. I know what would be left should I strip away the drinking-fueled drama-- one very lonely and anxious girl with a low sexual self-esteem. But even so, that girl is strong. And she certainly doesn't want to be pitied, saved or put on a pedestal by Dan!

When Dan and I went out on Monday night, as much as I tried not to, I still felt uncomfortable around him. How could I not? The guy announced he was in love with me and it's not reciprocated! On top of that, it became an issue I didn't feel comfortable speaking freely about on my blog. I didn't want to hurt his feelings. On top of that, how weird is for me to go on reporting my sexual exploits with Narc knowing that Dan, (having declared his love) is going to read about them!

All of these things were swimming around in my head. I don't want these people reading my blog anymore. I don't want ANYONE that I know in person, or outside of the blog world to be reading my blog. I just don't want it.

So I changed the address.

Anyway, on to my visit with Narc last night...

When I got there, he answered the door naked and walked back over to the couch. We had kind of an unremarkable evening. A lot of sex and a lot of television... the usual stuff. I somehow felt tired of him. Maybe I'm just tired of fucking someone who doesn't care about me-- who didn't ask who had died in my family, and who has never once asked how my brother is doing in the whole six months since the accident. I don't know... I fucked him anyway.

We were up until about 3:30 am. Narc had slept in that afternoon until 4:30 pm. I, on the other hand, had been at a funeral all day on about three hours of sleep (thanks, Narc!). Narc would be able to wake up at his leisure the next morning. I, on the other hand, had to set my alarm and get up for my therapy-phone call. Ughhh! He didn't seem to care.

This morning I woke up and had a really amazing therapy session. I still need to process all of it, but I think that I'm ready to start reframing my thinking on a lot of issues. I called my therapist from the plaza in front of Narc's building. Then I went back inside and crawled back into bed with him. He jumped out of bed with no more sex though. It was strange. I checked my email from his computer to see if Hammer had written back to me. She had.

She said:

I will take this email as a sign then that you do not want my help. That, and the fact that you took down your blog. Do not worry, I will not help you. You are lucky to have me and other friends who take the time to care about your well-being. But if you want to continue with the lifestyle that you have, then there is nothing else I can do for you-- don't expect me to listen when you call me crashing from a high, or pity you as you begin to get ill again. You can't even stay sober for 72 hours anymore. good luck.

I couldn't believe her response! It took everything I had to fight back the tears, as I didn't want to cry in front of Narc. Narc came over and read the email.

"Whatever... I wouldn't worry about it," he said. "She's probably just going through some stress in her own life and is dumping it all on you."

"I hope that's all it is," I said.

Narc started to get dressed.

"I'm meeting James for lunch. So you better get going, alright?"

"Fine. Whatever..."

I pulled on my clothes and headed towards the door. I was pissed that he was ushering me out. This day was turning into total shit. I didn't even bother to turn around or hug him goodbye. I just slammed the door behind me.

I took a cab uptown to my voice lesson, even though having been forced out of Narc's place, I was an hour too early. On the way up, I called B. I just had to talk to someone about the whole Hammer exchange. The conversation started out okay until he started defending Hammer. It was a vulnerable moment for me, and I had called him for comfort. I felt friendless and again, under attack.

I am WAY too exhausted right now to try to detail our conversation, but it turned into a pretty bitter fight.

"I'm fucking SICK of your victim complex!" B shouted at me.

"Well, I'm fucking sick of you cutting me down! And I'm sick of leaning on you and being left to fall!"

"Give me a break, Hyde! Who the fuck do you think you are?" he demanded.

I didn't bother to respond. I hung up on him.

Tears streaming down my cheeks, I wandered over to Riverside Park and the Firefighter's memorial. I sat on a bench and stared at the fountain and a nearby tree for 45 minutes until it was time for my lesson. During that time, B sent me a text:

I'm sorry. Don't mean to abandon you. But please try to hear what I'm trying to say. Have a good lesson.

Still, I didn't respond. Every bone in my body wanted to forgo the world and drag myself into a cave somewhere. I'm sick of my friends. I'm sick of my acquaintances. I'm sick of everyone and everything that I know. I don't want to DEAL with this. I just wanted to go home and sit with my cat and be a hermit. I don't think I've ever felt quite as exhausted as I did at that moment. I went to my voice lesson instead.

After the half hour of singing (which is always meditative for me), I returned B's text:

Thanks. I will. I just need some space now though.

He answered:

Ok. You know I love you forever.

Part of me felt relieved by his response, but part of me was infuriated.

"FUCK YOU!" I wanted to scream. "If you love me so much, then why did you make our relationship impossible? Why did you make me feel like shit about myself for three years? Why were there points when I didn't even want to leave the house? Why did I feel sexually worthless? Why did I feel emotionally used? Why did I trust you? Why did I put all of my eggs in one basket, believing in our future together. YOU FAILED ME! AND I HATE YOU!!! Damn it! How am I suppposed to sit on these feelings forever??? AND WHY SHOULD I??? Just because I love you???"

I didn't answer his text.

I sat down to set up my new blog address and to check my email. Hammer had sent me another response. (Again, it was a long one, so I'll just post an excerpt here, to get the point across).

Hyde-

It's not like I don't want to be your friend. I'm actually really sad, and as I wrote yesterday, I have been really down and anxious about your condition for several months now. It seems sometimes that you don't think about how painful your behaviour can be to other people who care for you. Sometimes it feels like you are actually really selfish. You just treat it like it's your problem, and we all have to be here for you, whatever it does to us. Apart from the pain I feel in seeing how deeply desperate and self destructive your behavior has been, there were a few times when your drinkings and dramas really hurt my feelings. One of them was the most recently, when you came to DC after an all-nighter of drugs and drinking. I felt I was your excuse to stay sober, or your therapeutic crashing pad... I want to be here and to help you. I can see that you are sometimes quite desperate. I can relate to the feeling, but not to your solution. Like I told you on the phone last week, your "life" is not so fucked up. You are incredibly fortunate with a loving family, with a lot of money, with an incredible ability to touch people, with a huge intellect. But you are filled with chemicals so much of the time. I am not. What do we do about this enormous discrepancy? Do I continue to watch you desperately struggle on your own? Or do I try to offer my help to you? I can help you continue to hide from your family, if only you will go to therapy (real therapy) and address your tendencies to fix everything with alcohol and drugs. You are hurting me and you are severely damaging yourself. I have watched you get worse and worse throughout the months. That is where all of this emotion comes from.

Love, hammer

So I wrote back to her (again, not presented here in full):


Hammer,

I'm sorry that I've been insensitive to your feelings. The reason I am taking down my blog is not to keep secrets from you, but rather, because I can see that reading the play by play of my life is burdensome and stressful to you as it must also be to other friends. I'm very sorry that I've ever hurt you. I care about you and don't mean to be selfish. B and I have a sort of agreement between us--he doesn't approve of many of my behaviors and so I don't talk to him about them. Obviously, that's not a long term solution for me or my problems, but it IS a way for us to have a happy and ongoing friendship.

I realize that I've been unfair by calling you while drunk or complaining to you about my own fears etc. It shouldn't be your burden and I can understand why it stresses you out so much. As such, I don't want that to be a part of our friendship any more. Not because I don't trust you, but because I don't want to put that kind of strain on our relationship.

As for the other issues in your email-- I had a great time in DC. I had been looking forward to visiting you all summer long (I repeatedly asked about free weekends, etc.) and I never EVER saw you as an "excuse to stay sober" or a "theraputic crashing pad." I made a mistake by doing too much the night before my visit. I was angry at myself for that as well. I understand why it hurt your feelings, but please don't misinterpret my behavior. My weekend in DC was more enjoyable to me than all of the nights I go out drinking. I miss having you around... It's been a strange summer for me. The trauma-situation with Narc in early June really threw me off and I messed up big time by not getting a job. I haven't had any kind of stability this summer. I'm sorry if that trickled into our visit...

...I'm sorry that you feel like I take your friendship for granted. Trust me--I don't. I really do appreciate you, and I DO hear you right now. I will do more to be sensitive to your feelings and needs so that you know it. Solving MY issues should not be YOUR problem... I had a really good therapy session today and need some time to think about all of it before I can say any more on the matter of alcohol, Narc or "love." There's really too much swimming in my head right now about that to even attempt putting some of it into this email.

I need some time to think right now. Some time away from Narc and Cheers and blogging. I'm going to try to take it easy for the next few days. (And FYI--by 2:30 am tonight I'll be 72 hours w/o alcohol!)

I hear what you're saying, but I'm asking you to give me the chance to redefine our friendship without all of this between us, and to make this my problem and not yours. I don't want to be a selfish friend and I'm sorry that I have been.

Let's talk about this when you get back, okay? Until then, give me some space to do some work on it on my own and let's see how it all goes.

Please let me know what you think. I don't want to lose your friendship over this.
Hyde

Anyway, that's where we left off.

And that brings this blog up to date. I need to lay down for a while now. I need to close my eyes and think.

I am so so SO fucking tired.

-hyde-

Endings

I'm taking this blog down for a while. I'll be in touch with as many of you as possible via comments. I'm going to leave this post up for a day or so, but after that this address won't work anymore.

Goodbye.

-Hyde-

Opposite Day!

One of these days, I need to declare an "opposite day." I need to do the exact opposite of all of my instincts and all of my impulses. I have to ignore my heart and ignore my feelings and follow my head. (The opposite of what I usually do, of course!) I need to eat foods I don't want to (like salad), drink beverages I don't want to (of a non-alcoholic nature), wake up early (whereas I love to sleep in), exercise (instead of watching crap TV and doing drugs), stay away from late night phone calls (and namely one Narcissist), write pages for one of my incomplete papers (instead of pages of drivel for my blog) and then, only then, do I think I'll be in pretty good shape.

Opposite Day! I need one!

Yesterday I had a crap voice lesson, mainly because my body is so run down from stress and the endless stream of booze being poured down my throat. Last night I had dinner with Dan, and like he put it on his blog, we had a "personal conversation." I both love and hate "personal conversations." It always feels good to open up to someone at the time I'm doing it, but afterwards, I have lingering anxiety. It's kind of like a conversation-hangover and it always takes me a few days to get over it. Oh well. We had a really good time though.

After dinner we stopped over at Cheers. My super was there, along with BulgarianGuy and BarMan was working. PumpedUp called and BarMan managed to get the whole story on why Crys got kicked out and forever "banned" from the bar on Saturday night. Basically he had been all over a really really (REALLY) drunk girl and one of the girl's friends asked him to "back off" several times. He didn't "back off" though and this guy asked him to back off yet again. At one point, he threw a punch at Crys, and Crys reacted to that. It just so happens that the guy who threw the punch is PumpedUp's friend, so things went sour for Crys. As weird as he is, I feel bad for him. It doesn't sound like the whole thing was his fault.

Anyway, after just two drinks or so, I wanted to turn in. I've been under a lot of emotional stress and I was trying to be prudent. I knew if I drank any more I wasn't going to want to stop and I didn't want it to turn into a night of drunkeness. So I told Dan I wanted to go home and he walked me to my building's entrance. Back at home, I tried for a little while to get some sleep, but I couldn't. I desperately wanted to go back out and get enough to drink that I wouldn't have to try to calm my thoughts on my own. I knew it wasn't a good idea, but eventually I gave in. Fuck it. I threw on some clothes and headed back over to Cheers.

I was surprised that they were still open. The place had been pretty empty when Dan and I left. Upon my return, no one was there except for BulgarianGuy and a friend of his. BarMan laughed that I was back.

"I knew that couldn't have been the end of you before!" he said.

We all hung out there for a while and then BarMan got a call.

"That's ThursdayGirl," he said. "She's downtown at a bar with her brother and a bunch of friends. Let's close this place up so we can get over there!"

He asked if we had somewhere to go to wait for him to close.

"Um, hello? I live right there!" I said, gesturing across the street. I was finally feeling drunk.

BulgarianGuy and I came back to my place and he played a little jazz piano. He popped open a bottle of wine and poured us each a glass. I sang a song. Finally BarMan called.

"We're good to go," he said.

We headed down to meet him on the corner and all piled into a cab.

"Hyde, you're riding bitch!" BarMan said.

I don't know the name of the place we went to. It was on 11th street between Avenue A and 1st. BarMan pointed out that it was the first time we had hung out outside of Cheers. I really like him. He has always been a really sweet (and non-judgemental) guy to me in a way that's sincere. (For example, when I was complaining about my incompletes once, he asked me if there's anything he can do to help, and he meant it. And when I was having that personal crisis in early June, he hugged me and told me that he would help me in whatever way he could no matter my decision.)

Anyway, when we got there, ThursdayGirl was there with her brother, two of his friends, a friend of hers from school and the school-friend's boyfriend. I was drinking hard and so I don't remember the details of any of our conversations. Just that the school friend was from Nashville. At some point I went outside and called Narc.

SHIT!

He actually picked up the phone. He was home and told me that he couldn't come out because he was "working." I must have tried to convince him, but he refused.

"I'm deep into my writing right now," he said.

"I thought your script was finished."

"It is."

He told me what else he was working on, but frankly, I don't remember.

Defeated, I went back into the bar. In my heart I knew that if I had called Narc (as I told myself I wouldn't do) I must have been about to hit to wall. I definitely didn't want to embarass myself in front of BarMan or his friends, and besides, I've been run down lately. So I made an excuse and told them all that I had to head out.

This morning I woke up feeling crappy. Two red bulls later, I'm starting to feel better and I'm glad. There's still time to salvage the day. I'm gonna take a shower, eat lunch and declare myself "reborn" by 1:00 pm. Then I have to call my mom and deal with my uncle's death. I've been completley ignoring it, but I guess I can't do that forever. Damn coping mechanisms!

Alright, later...

-H-

Death

My uncle died this morning.

I don't want to be reflective right now.
I just want to go eat lunch.

-hyde-

Love

I read the rest of that poem that Spinsterwitch quoted to me. It really moved me, and so I sent it to B. Here's what he wrote back to me:


That's so beautiful! So beautiful it hurts. Kinda
like how I love you. :)

-b

I love him too.

Dramas

First of all (even though they don't read this), congratulations to LilSis and JBC-- They just got engaged!

Anyway, I'm feeling a lot better today. I suppose it had to go up from where I was yesterday, right? Even so, I don't have the energy to detail the past few days here in the same way that I normally do. So I'll keep some of it uncharacteristically brief.

On Thursday night, NDN had his dinner party at a Korean BBQ place. I drank too much plum wine and generally had a great time. It was nice to get a chance to catch up with Oc. Added to that, the dinner included a strange sort of reunion. One of NDN's friends came with her two cousins. The cousins and I realized that we were born in neighboring towns, and while I didn't put it together that night, it turns out that I actually knew them when I was growing up. The elder of the two sisters was very good friends with LilSis when LilSis was only four years old. I didn't recognize her because I hadn't seen her in twenty years, but when I told my mom about the strange coincidence of meeting two girls from that same small-town area, she asked me their names and immediately made the connection. Weird.

It was a fun dinner party. After the meal we all came back here to hang out at NDN's. I stopped off at Cheers with Oc and another of NDN's friends to do a quick shot first. I saw one of the FourthFloorGirls there. She thinks I have a crazy life, and gave me quite a look as I dashed in and out of there with two boys she had never seen before. I found it rather amusing. Anyway, back at NDN's place we drank some more and smoked the hookah. I snuck into my own apartment and did a few lines. That kind of fucked me up, so by 1:00 am when everyone headed home, I should have just gone to bed.

Is that what I did, though? No! Not Hyde! I just had to push it as far as I could. You see, earlier in the evening, Narc had sent me a text:

Out in midtown now. May give call later.

So basically, he put me on call. How could I go to sleep? I dragged my collapsing body over to Cheers to try to drink through the come-down. Well, I don't remember much else (as I already told you in my post about "Memory Loss"). Here's what I've been able to reconstruct about that night:

Narc told me that I called him a million and one times. According to him, I met him at one of his favorite bars in the West Village. He said that I got there at 3:30, but I suspect it's more like 4:30 based on the outgoing calls on my cell phone, and the fact that he said I got there just after the bar's last-call. He told me that I didn't have any cash because I couldn't get the ATM to work and that he had to come out and pay for my cab. I later realized (from crumpled receipts wrapped around my Visa Card) that I had been trying to use a regular credit card at the ATM machine. (Oops!)

After that, I do have one brief memory of the night. I don't know what time it was, but I remember being on the floor of Narc's living room, near the coffee table. I was crying and I think I told him that I love him. He looked stern and told me that he doesn't like "histrionic (or hysterical) Hyde." He must have said I was being irrational because I remember telling him that I didn't care...that he thinks all woman are irrational, and that he even said so in a voicemail a while back. He denied it, and I remember trying to find that message saved on my phone.

(I posted it on July 6th. But to remind you, here's what he had said in the message:
Hyde, you are probably ignoring me right now. I forgot that women do this. I was thinking for a second there that you were like all rational and that, um, if I wanted to see you and you wanted to see me, you'd all be like: "Oh yeah... We should figure this out!" But I forgot that you're a woman and you're going to dwell on some kind of weird-ass like serpentine underwater thing. Well, you know...like, figuratively underwater thing).

Anyway, I remember not being able to find the message.

That's the last thing I remember until I woke up the next day and saw the mysterious bloody sheets and the bruises on my legs. Also there is the unexplained matter of the 6:39 am outgoing call from my phone to Narc's. WHY would that call have been placed if we were together at that time? Ughh! I guess I'll never know.

Anyway, moving on... I spent all of Friday with Narc, just fucking and watching a lot of crap on TV. My head was killing me and I was really tired. It was pretty much a shit day, even though we were together. (Well, not total shit, but it was hard to fully enjoy him with such a headache and no real pain killers around). He was making plans to meet a bunch of friends on the Lower East Side. Other friends kept calling him, and he invited every single one of them out to join him. I didn't expect him to ask me along (he never has and never will, and besides I didn't feel up to it), but it hurt my feelings anyway.

As for my own evening plans-- I was supposed to meet NDN and a bunch of friends to go to a bar on Delancy, but I called him to cancel. I just really needed to rest my body. I came home and went to bed.

Saturday, as you know, was spent at the hospitals. The whole day left me pensive and miserable and I was resolved to take better care of myself. Completely resolved! I wanted to be done with all of this shit.

I hadn't eaten anything all day, so after posting here, I decided to go across the street and pick up some Chinese food. Passing Cheers I felt a strange impulse come over me. It was almost like a backlash born of fear about my new resolution. I went in.

As I pushed through the door and greeted the bouncer, I made a resolve to have no more than two drinks. I wouldn't have whiskey, but rather, I'd drink baileys. Yeah... baileys is not that strong, right?

About half an hour later I had finished four glasses of baileys. I didn't even try to stop myself. In fact, I drank faster than usual. (What the fuck is WRONG with you, Hyde?)

Crys (the crystal meth dealer from South Carolina) was there and was drunk upon my arrival. He hugged me and kissed my cheeks and told me that I was his "best friend in NY." He had crazy amounts of energy and was all over me. I would be surprised if he wasn't on something more than alcohol.

"Hyde! The the night I had hanging out with you was best night I've had in ages!"

He told me that before that night, he never would have imagined doing "medicine" on some girl's roof across from the Chrysler Building.

I smiled, and awkwardly untangled myself from him, taking a seat at one of the tables.

"Do you think there's any chance of a repeat experience?" he asked.

"No, not tonight," I said. "I've got to watch my health a bit tonight. Can't go crazy."

But once I switched back to good old Jack and downed a few, I was just as glad to see him. The two of us had a blast cheering for the motley succession of drunk karaoke-performers. He and I did a Garth Brooks and Tricia Yearwood duet, and I have to say, we kicked ass. He does a perfect Garth imitation and the crowd went wild afterwards.

A lot of the old regulars were there. Another guy named Dan who I know from a while back but hadn't seen for a few months was there celebrating his 30th birthday. My biggest drunken "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" fan was there and kept trying to put his arm around me. I saw a friend of BulgarianGuy's, and another guy that I know named Pete. I also bumped into a guy that I had met there months ago. (I tried to go back and find the exact night here on my blog, but I have SO many posts about drunken nights at Cheers, that it would take too long to find this one in the pile). Anyway, this guy is an amazing singer, and likes to sing the "thong song" and get down into the crowd singing to individual girls. Weird. (And slightly annoying). The last time we met, he was majorly hitting on me, and I remember talking to him outside the bar and telling him that I'd be back the next night to hang out. I never showed up though. I guess I must be his type, because he even though he didn't remember me from a few months ago, last night he was hitting on me again. He sang that romantic song "Back at One" and pulled me up on stage with him, staring at me intensely while his sang it. Thank god for the alcohol or I would have died from embarrassment.

Anyway, he kept trying to get me to dance with him, but I didn't want to. Despite the drinking, I was still feeling morose from my day of "decay" and dancing was just a little too much for me.

"Please!" he insisted. "You have a gorgeous voice, and I have to say... I have a little crush on you!"

I refused. In the middle of this conversation though, I heard a commotion near the door. I turned to see what had happened and apparently Crys had gotten into some sort of bar fight with someone. The bouncer was pulling him back and PumpedUp was heading over to deal with the situation. I was confused. A few minutes later, Crys came over to me, tears in his eyes.

"PumpedUp is kicking me out," he said. "He told me never to set foot into this bar again!"

He was really shaken up.

"That's awful!" I tried to comfort him. "It's not so bad, though. There are other places to go, right?"

(Meanwhile, I wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that on Tuesday I told IrishBird about my strange encounter with Crys the night before I went to visit Hammer).

"You don't understand," he went on. "I just lost my job and I'm gonna be forced out of my place tomorrow. I have nowhere to stay and no money. This bar is the only fucking reason I'm still in New York! You're like my best friend in this fucking city!"

(What? I certainly hope that's not true!)

"Well, it has to get better, right?" I smiled through the whiskey. " I'm sure you'll be okay."

I was starting to feel a little awkward. I may have been drunk, but I'm not stupid. I felt like he was trying to con me. He definitely wanted something from me and it was making me uncomfortable. The conversation didn't last for long though. PumpedUp ushered him out of the bar.

I stayed and continued to have fun, in massive denial of everything I had gone through earlier that day. At one point, I saw Crys passing outside the window. He beckoned for me to come outside, but I sort of waved him away. I didn't want to get any more involved.

The bar started closing up at around 4:00 or 4:30 am. Incidentally, the busboy who has a crush on me finally decided to talk to me. He said a few words to me in Spanish. I guess I had tried speaking Spanish to him at one point in the past. I answered him (in broken drunken Spanish), but don't remember now what we said. Probably just made some menial conversation. I wasn't that interested. I was too busy feeling down on myself because I had texted and called Narc. I felt a little stupid and a little desperate for having done so. I don't want Narc to think badly of me. But looking back on my text, you couldn't tell I was drunk, so at least that, right? I wrote:

You still up? Just wanted to talk to someone... Nevermind if you're asleep...

Whatever...

Anyway, when I left the bar, guess who was still lingering on the sidewalk outside? That's right-- Crys. He came over to talk to me. He still seemed really upset.

"Why did you wave me away before?" he asked.

"I don't know. Because they weren't going to let you back in."

I was hungry (remember, I had done all that drinking on an empty stomach, never having made it to the Chinese place) and wanted to go across to the deli. He followed me.

"Look, Hyde-- I need your help. I really don't have anywhere to go tonight. I have no one. I'm totally alone."

"I don't know what to tell you," I said, filling my arms with red-bulls for the inevitable hangover headache the next day. "I wish I could help, but I can't."

"You can, though," he insisted. "Can't I stay at your place? I could even sleep up on the roof!" He was talking too close to me, touching my arm, and staring imploringly into my eyes. He had a sort of puppy-dog look on his face. I couldn't help but get the feeling that it was an act he had put on many times before.

By now I was paying at the register. "I can't do that," I told him. "I just can't."

"Why not?"

"Because! I'm a single girl living in New York City. I have to fucking look out for myself!"

"Why? Do you think I'm going to attack you? Or rob you?" (Um, actually, I did...) He acted all insulted. Like I had said something to mortally wound his feelings.

"I just can't," I said. "That's it."

He left the deli while I waited for my change. When I was done paying I peeked out the door and saw him still there, leaning against a street lamp. His posture was slumped over. Again, I think it was for my benefit. I didn't care, I drunkenly ran across the street, breathlessly stumbling into my lobby.

"Look, if anyone comes by here for me, don't let them in!" I told the doorman.

"Of course, of course!"

And with that, I was home. I felt like the night had soured. I didn't want to be home alone and I was angry at myself for being drunk. I was still depressed about all of the illness I had seen earlier in the day, and I was anxious about Narc. On top of that, I felt guilty for having left Crys on the street. I blogged a somewhat incoherent post (in which I revealed more about myself and my past than I would have liked to) and collapsed into bed.

Today I renewed my resolve to take better care of myself and to better manage my life. I took down last night's post, hoping that very few of you read it. (I know that Charby saw it, because she left me a comment, but that's okay). I don't know, though... Things like that shouldn't be happening to me--shady crystal meth dealers pressuring me to be let in to my apartment at 4:30 am! I mean, really...

Tonight I had dinner with my friend Jake and his girlfriend at a local Japanese place. Walking there and back, the thunderstorms were immense. The rain fell in blinding sheets and the humidity was unbearable. I'm home now and am going to try to get to bed at a reasonable hour. Tomorrow begins a work week for me. I have a lot to do to prepare for the coming semester--especially in terms of my teaching. Narc is never far from my mind, but I'm going to do my best to chill about all of that. Honestly, I really do believe that the less I drink and the more I work, the less I'm going to "love" Narc. At least that's what I'm hoping...

Good night for now!

Hyde

Decay

Today was so hard. It was a fucking awful day and I'm tired of everything.

I got up early and went to Long Island to see my brother. I don't care how much "better" he's doing, he's still lost about half of his brain capacity. Every now and then that really sinks in for me. Today was one of those days.

On top of that, he's running a fever and so they have to postpone the skull replacement surgery yet AGAIN. To make matters worse, there were clear signs of swelling in his face, especially around the eyes. This means the infection is probably in his head and the swelling is from infection-related fluids. My mom and I stayed at the hospital until around 2:00 pm when they had to take him to the emergency room. I'm still waiting for an update on his condition.

After that I went home with my mom and tried to eat lunch, but I couldn't eat much. My mom's uncle is also in the hospital (a different hospital though). He's dying from cancer--pancreatic cancer that has now spread to his stomach. He's expected to die at any moment. Last night he was throwing up so much blood that they're surprised he made it through the night.

This uncle is only 10 years older than my mom and was always around in my life. I never would have imagined something like this happening to him so young. It makes me worry about my mom. I think if anything happened to her, I would just cease to function as a human being. It really is unimaginable to me. My mom's uncle is at the best cancer hospital in the city, so my mom decided to drive me back to Manhattan and she, my stepfather and I stopped over to see him.

Again, it was incredibly painful for me. When we got there, we met his daughter by the elevators. She was crying in such a way that I just got the most awful feeling in my chest. It really hurt and it was everything I could do to keep from crying myself. His wife was also a wreck. But there was nothing anyone could say. Everyone, including my uncle, knows he's sharing his last moments with them.

The last time I saw my uncle he was perfectly fine. That was about a month and a half ago. How frightening to think that the cancer was there, spreading and killing him, even then. When we got to his room, I was shocked. He looks like a ghost. He is just a shade of his former self--pale, gaunt and thin, his face grimacing in pain. Blood was pouring out of the tubes coming out of his nose. He was moaning, his whole body completely pained and he desperately needed more morphine, but to give him the morphine would almost certainly kill him. He's just too weak. They said it would slow his heart-rate too much. His son and another cousin are staying the night. I think they're going to probably give the morphine to him anyway. He has no chance of surviving for long, so what's the point of enduring that kind of physical agony? We sat there for a few hours. A cousin of my mom's was there--one that I've never met, and it was strange because he looks just like her, and so, I suppose, like me as well. He kept staring at me. I know how he felt-- it's always strange to see another incarnation of your own face. It made me have strange thoughts about family... thoughts that I can't articulate.

So, what does all of this mean? I'm tired of the way I live and I'm tired of sickness and of death. I don't want to do what I do anymore. I don't want to have Narc drama or any kind of drama any more. I don't want to fuck my body up day in and day out. Right now I feel like I don't even want to keep this blog. I just want quiet. I just want to quiet all of this. I can't stand how much pain there is in life. I want to be with my family and I want people to stop disappearing.

Sometimes I think about my stepbrother as a little boy--the sweetest angel-faced little boy you can imagine. He was only two when I met him. I think back about that boy and imagine that only years away was this accident waiting to happen to that little boy--waiting to take away life as he knew it. Is this part of some kind of plan? I just don't know what to believe. But when I think of how full of life he was, I feel sick. I feel sick to my stomach right now. I mean, I know he's still alive, but we'll be lucky if he's in any way able to live without constant care and supervision.

Maybe it sounds like I'm being ungrateful. I don't mean for it to sound that way. I think it's a miracle that my stepbrother is here at all. And I've come to terms with death in general, having grieved the decay and death of my father and grandmother up close. I'm really not angry at the world. It's more like I'm angry at myself. I hate myself for all of this. Being around all of this pain... Being around broken bodies and seeing how it pains people that I love... And here I am, running around making a mess of my life for no apparent reason. What's wrong with me? Why don't I just grow up and take better care of myself already? Don't I have that responsibility to my family? I fucking hate myself tonight.

These are the things that are on my mind tonight. And here I am alone in my apartment and not sure what to do with myself. There's a choked sob caught in my throat. I don't want to be alone, but I certainly don't want company. (Well, anyone except B that is, but he's busy). I don't think I could stand it tonight. I don't want to go out drinking. I feel like I never want to drink again. But at the same time, without it, the night streches forbodingly ahead.

I hate this.

-hyde-